The Other Side of Things (Ep 06) - "Intimacy with All Things" with Alyssa Morin

00:00 Introduction
01:17 Who is Alyssa Morin?
02:22 Michael's early trauma
03:35 Gwyneth Paltrow Love, Sex and Goop
04:00  What is Somatic Sex Education? 
05:00 Alyssa's background in Zen, Soulwork and being a minister's daughter.
06:00 Alyssa's journey to SSE and what it is.
09:35 Let me dive into everything during her first Saturn Return
11:00 Caffyn Jesse and healing circumcision trauma
13:00 Zen practice as a prelude to SSE
14:50 The power of lineage and containers
15:45 Dogen, "Enlightenment is intimacy with all things." 
19:00 Sitting with whatever arises.
20:50 Eros/Life Force and Aliveness.
23:00 Eros/Psyche/Natura - bringing opposites into relationship and longing.
24:00 Meaning of Rilke's phrase, "Go to the limits of your longing." 
28:50 How do you bring a soulcentric/soulwork approach to your work?
29:50 The Soulwork Lineage of Bill Plotkin and her teachers
32:30 Sexuality, Trauma and Initiatory experiences and finding meaning in the suffering
36:00 Art as Ritual/Ritual as Art
37:40 Self-designed Ceremony
41:00 Losing the Sacred
42:00 The Verdant Collective 
45:11 Women exploring their belonging and regulating their nervous systems
47:00 Pleasure and Please have the same root word - does this please you?
48:50 The power of listening
49:30 Your sexuality is yours!
50:00 Somatic Sex Education in more detail
51:40 Your arousal IS the event
55:30 Closing Comments and Thoughts

I came across Alyssa's work as part of my own healing journey after watching the riveting and painful documentary American Circumcision. It triggered some old trauma's from multiple surgeries I had between the ages of birth and age 7.  It hit me really hard.  I came across the work of Caffyn Jesse who offered a free online training for those who may have been traumatized by the experience.  It was life changing.  She was one of the founders of Somatic Sex Education, and it turned out I would later discover trained Alyssa.  When I went to explore this area of healing further I came across Alyssa's website which was VERY different then most of those working in the space.  Having grown up Catholic, I was struck first that she was a minister's daughter, secondly that she practiced Zen meditation (something I had done since the age of 18) and thirdly she worked within the lineage of Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., the author of such books as Soulcraft and Nature and the Human Soul.  I trained with Bill in the 90's and worked closely with him on my way to being a wilderness vision fast guide for many years.  I knew immediately the kinship in our backgrounds would make Alyssa the perfect resource for me to work on my own deeper healing of my childhood trauma's.  I'm so glad she has agreed to be on the show. You'll truly enjoy her depth, authenticity, heart and soulful sharing of her wisdom. 

A bit more about Alyssa:

Alyssa Morin is a soulcentric Somatic Sex Educator, and Relationship and Intimacy Guide. Her work with individuals, couples and groups traverses a wide range: from practical, applicable, matter-of-fact sex education and problem-solving, to sensual, inexorable, earth-shattering magick, to clear self-knowing — all through the body. 

And on her website:

Connection, yes. Making babies, got it. But pleasure? Fun? A way to express and come to understand the many sides of myself, a portal into altered states of consciousness? All of that was buried under fear, embarrassment, misunderstandings, trauma, and shame.

The journey to where I stand now, a Somatic Sex Educator, was a winding and meandering one. Undergraduate studies in college lead to a degree in journalism, taught me to think for myself, and revealed that most of the questions I was interested in asking would not be answered – probably could not even be asked – in the ivy covered halls of academia.

Twenty-two years spent in gymnastics facilities, as both athlete and coach, taught me much about the body, its mechanics, its beauty and grace. I learned of sacrifice and devotion, pain and frustration, triumph and failure,  friendship and betrayal. I learned what humans need to relax into and trust another to catch them as they hurl their bodies through the air, while refining a capacity to look deeply into complexity and find and name the simple adjustment that can change everything.

Deep dives into the relational practice Circling, as well as Zen Meditation, and Women’s Culture and Community, along with medicine journeys and soul work, slowly peeled back layers to reveal the truth that had perhaps existed all along: Embodiment, sexuality, eros, intimacy, and relationships are my work.

Alyssa's website: https://www.alyssamorin.org/
The Verdant Collective Website: https://www.theverdantcollective.com/
Michael's website: https://michaeldemaria.com/